Senator Chuck Grassley says he will vote against giving Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke a second term.   

“I’ll vote no because of concerns about inflation and the pattern of resistance to accountability,” Grassley says. “The Fed has to unwind its massive balance sheet and remove the excessive funds created to paper over the financial sector’s unacknowledged losses without stoking the flames of inflation.”

Grassley, a Republican, joins Iowa’s other U.S. Senator — Democrat Tom Harkin — in opposing Bernanke.  A vote on Bernanke’s nomination to another term as Federal Reserve chairman is scheduled tomorrow in the senate.  Grassley says Bernanke needs to be more focused on a strong dollar and lower inflation.

“The current chairman has been behind the scenes with a policy of easy money, inflating our way out of a stock market bubble to a housing bubble,” Grassley says.  “Now we face the inevitable result and it seems like we’re in a situation to repeat the mistakes of the past with the kind of hyperinflation we had in ’79 and ’80.”

According to Grassley, the Federal Reserve — under Bernanke’s leadership — has put taxpayers “at risk in unprecedented ways” by subsidizing financial firms “far above what congress authorized.”